New Layout

We have a new theme on our site! This is BIG news (for us – at least)! I had to share a little bit of what happens behind the scenes. I have been sitting on the idea to change up the look of the site for a few months. I don’t have any sort of background in IT, only minimal WordPress knowledge which I have acquired over the past year with this site. The idea of switching made me very nervous. Sure we could have easily hired someone to make the changes for us, but this is something that I really want to learn and the only way to learn for me is by going through the process myself.

I was quite lucky that I found exactly what I wanted from the get go. I must explain that we changed the theme which is only the look of the website. All the content remains the same. I ran the idea by Vanessa and sent her a demo of the site, she loved it too. Then I just sat and waited. The only thing that was stopping me was that the theme that I wanted required me to make changes in areas that I didn’t even understand. Two months had passed and I found myself saying the same thing, “We are going to update the site, ” but no REAL action had been done. Sure I had emailed several different forums asking questions about making the change but still didn’t really understand. I was scared.

Finally, last week I decided to take the plunge. Do you know what? It was actually quite easy to make the changes. It’s working out the little tidbits here and there can be time consuming. Lucky for me I have an amazing support network that I can go to for IT questions. There are also tons of tutorials online so I google a lot of my questions. I did have a major scare one night (at 12:30 am) when all I saw was a white screen. So I googled “white screen” and the search resulted “White Screen of Death.” Uh oh. Time to walk away from the computer and get a glass of wine. It was one of those moments when I started questioning my entire involvement in Real Housewives of Abu Dhabi. Is it all gone? Do I have to start all over? What have I done? Fortunately, I had support from an incredible woman who fixed it in no time at all. Crisis diverted!

Which brings me to now. If I have learned anything from this entire process it is to just do it! With feedback from friends, other bloggers and writers, I have made changes which I hope improve our site. It is ready…for now. I am happy to start sharing posts again. Please keep in mind that this is a work in progress. I am still learning everyday how to make improvements here and there. I have more enhancements that will be coming out in the near future. Also if you find something that is not working – PLEASE let me know. Let us know what you think of the new layout.